Democrats are pushing for early-voting initiatives that would keep certain polling places open for days or weeks at a time before an election. The goal is to increase voter convenience and turnout, and to also provide mechanisms to ease election chaos that can be created by a natural disaster like superstorm Sandy.

New Jersey would join 33 other states and the District of Columbia with some form of early voting. But Gov. Christie vetoed an earlier attempt, and Democratic supporters of the legislation expect that could happen again.

Republicans say they don’t like early voting because it’s too costly. The real reason, however, is because of the presumption that more voting opportunities will boost the turnout of working-class and poorer voters who might be unable to get to the polls on election day itself. Those voters more often lean Democratic, and so the GOP doesn’t want them casting ballots. The same theory is behind Republican support for voter ID requirements that would weed out poorer and immigrant voters — and Democratic votes — from citizens unable to acquire the necessary ID documents.

Of course Republicans can’t admit any of that, so they pull out the fable about costs, even though Christie was anxious to burn millions of dollars for last year’s special Senate election less than a month before the general election, allegedly in the name of democracy. Remember how adamant Christie was that the people needed to decide a permanent Senate successor to the late Frank Lautenberg as soon as possible?

Christie wasn’t worried about the people at all; he wanted to keep Democratic powerhouse Senate candidate Cory Booker off the same ballot as Christie’s re-election effort. As we’ve increasingly learned amid and around the Bridgegate investigation, Christie wasn’t satisfied with merely winning by a big margin; he wanted as overwhelming a victory as possible to boost his national status. So he used taxpayer money to protect himself.

This time around, at least the Republicans would be saving taxpayer money by blocking early voting, but the true motivation is the same: Protect themselves.

The latest early-voting bill calls for at least three polling places and as many as seven — depending on the size of the municipality — to be open for 15 days prior to a general or primary election. Christie’s earlier veto pegged the costs of early voting in the neighborhood of $25 million, although the revamped legislation would lower that amount with a reduction in open hours.

Opponents argue that there are sufficient early-voting opportunities already to vote by mail or through absentee ballots. But any additional options will bring more people into the process, and as we were again reminded by the meager primary turnout, the current system is so dysfunctional that many residents feel their votes simply don’t matter.

Politicians owe early voting to the public. They are the ones who have drained civic interest from voters with their relentless hypocrisy and dishonesty. And the primary process is so tightly controlled by party power brokers that average voters don’t even have a chance to make a meaningful choice.

Early voting won’t immediately correct those problems. But if it gets voters to exercise more of a voice, it will be worth far more than keeping Booker away from Christie.